Weekly Watchdog

August 30, 2012

Manipulating Medicare - and rhetoric

Medicare has vaulted to the top tier of election issues, thanks to vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's proposal that the entitlement program be converted to a system of "premium support" that would provide subsidies for elderly beneficiaries to buy insurance on the private market.

But Medicare is a complex topic, and the charges and counter-charges seem likely to yield more heat than light for a confused electorate.

The Center's Manipulating Medicare series has attempted to fill that void. In the next month, we'll be adding to this with major new investigative pieces on billing procedures by doctors and hospitals that have added tens of billions of dollars to our Medicare tab.

Drugs, guns and child porn at Homeland Security

The Department of Homeland Security is the first line of defense against threats to Americans, entrusted with guarding the borders, protecting the skies and cracking down on potential terrorist attacks.

But instead of protecting America's citizens, hundreds of DHS agents have been busy smuggling drugs, guns and illegal immigrants, obtaining child porn, and raking in thousands in bribes and theft.

Those are just a sampling of the crimes DHS agents committed, according to the "Summary of Significant Investigations" released by Homeland Security's Inspector General this month..

Consider the Source: Arizona primary latest example of Club for Growth's clout

As Republicans have battled for the soul of their party in primaries across the country, the deep-pocketed, anti-tax Club for Growth has proved itself a force to be reckoned with.

If heavily favored Rep. Jeff Flake prevails Tuesday in Arizona over businessman Wil Cardon, the Club will mark four wins against two losses among its favored candidates in U.S. Senate GOP primary races.

Of about five-dozen organizations that spent a combined $32 million on independent expenditures in Republican Senate primaries this year, Club for Growth ranks No. 1, having spent $10.8 million, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission records.

The Club's super PAC, which is allowed to accept unlimited contributions and spend the funds on ads attacking or backing candidates, is responsible for nearly all of this spending.

Back to School

For anyone worried about the future or journalism or the future of investigative reporting, here's a ray of sunshine, News21.

Every summer, this project brings together top student journalists from universities around the country to tackle an issue. In the past two weeks, publicintegrity.org has featured this year's powerful and timely series on voter fraud and the many new election laws and voting procedures that states have implemented.

Among the many gems in this multimedia project is the investigation into the essential question, 'just how big a problem is voting fraud in the first place?'

The News21 team analyzed 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000. They sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of fraudulent activity including registration fraud, absentee ballot fraud, vote buying, false election counts, campaign fraud, casting an ineligible vote, voting twice, voter impersonation fraud and intimidation. The comprehensive News21 election fraud database turned up 10 cases of voter impersonation. With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters. The 37 state legislatures that have enacted or are considering tough voter ID laws appear to attacking a virtually non-existent problem.

We are proud to showcase this great investigative work alongside our on-going Consider the Source project and we even asked our new political cartoonist, Rob Tornoe, to create an original piece on the topic. It's his second cartoon for us - we'll be featuring his work all year long.

Have a great holiday weekend,

Bill Buzenberg
Executive Director